I had a rough time structuring my ELA curriculum last year. I knew I would be teaching The Lightning Thief, and I knew I had to teach writing using The Write Tools, but otherwise, things were pretty open for me. That proved to be pretty overwhelming, especially since I was (and still am) the only one teaching my subjects at my grade level. Because the Social Studies curriculum is made up of different civilizations, it kind of structured itself, and I had a much easier time with that.

So this summer, I’ve been spending a lot of time planning ELA: the class novels, what I’m giving as homework, the weekly schedule, the structure of a class period. One new thing that I’m trying next year is using literature circles to discuss class novels, and Moving Forward with Literature Circles has been tremendously helpful.

Using how literature circles works in one specific 5th grade class as a model, the book gives an overview of what it looks like in a class period, and then breaks it down. How to structure it; how to teach it to students; how to assess it; it’s all there. There are even written out lessons, rubrics, examples of student work, and forms to photocopy and use. I honestly have zero memory as to where I got this book (or even when), but I’m so, so grateful that I ended up with it.

There are a number of different ways to do literature circles, but here’s how it’s used in the book:

Teach gives a quick mini-lesson on a skill or literary element

Students move into their small groups and use their journal entries as a starting point for discussion

Students write a post-discussion journal entry and fill out a form to record how the discussion went; they also pick the prompt to write about for next time, and decide how much to read for next time

The whole class comes together for a debriefing (what went well today, what problems groups had, etc)

In this model, the teacher had each group of students read a different book (that they selected as a group), and the groups picked their own writing prompts and decided as a group how much to read each week (literature circles in this class happened once a week for an hour). If I have time at the end of the year, I would like to try it with different groups reading different books, but I would like to use literature circles to discuss our class novels for most of the year. I think the structure of this model would be a really good way for students to share their journal responses to the prompt, and I love the idea of having students write post-discussion entries. Because everyone will be reading the same book, the whole class debriefing can open the discussion up, so students can build on what other groups have talked about. I’m also picturing doing literature circles twice a week, with two grammar days a week and Friday being kind of a flexible day to work more on specific skills, essay writing, and grammar quizzes/tests.

One challenge I’m having is how to balance literature circles (and the reading and journal entries as homework) with having students read their AR book and write reading logs. If I assign 6-8 pages to read and a journal entry response to the prompt twice a week, and grammar homework the other two nights (no homework on Fridays is school policy), I worry that reading their AR books for 45 minutes and doing their reading logs will be too much. Although I guess it’s not that bad? Reading logs don’t take too long to do. They only regularly have math homework, anyway–the only social studies and science homework they tend to have is project stuff, so it shouldn’t be too bad. Anyway, they won’t have lit circles homework right at the start of the year, so they can ease into it.

I’m also a little nervous about assessment, but the book has a whole chapter on that, as well as rubrics to use. I might need to practice filling out discussion observation rubrics a few times to get the hang of it (and to do it quickly).

Overall, I’m really excited about literature circles, and anyone who is curious about implementing them should look through this book.

After deciding on reading Wonder with my supported ELA class next year, I was trying to think of a similar book to use with my unsupported class. Wonder is an amazing book, but I had a fair number of above grade level readers in that class this past year, and I wanted something that would be a little more challenging. Additionally, since everyone will read our second novel, The Lightning Thief, this is a good chance for some clear differentiation.

The Thing About Jellyfish is a pretty perfect novel to teach alongside Wonder. Both center on a middle school student who feels incredibly isolated–who feels both invisible and too visible all at once. For August, it’s because of his physical appearance, but for Suzy, she feels it’s because of who she is–because she always says the wrong thing, because she doesn’t communicate the way other people expect her to. Both books also deal with bullying and the idea of kindness–and what it looks like in middle school.

The Thing About Jellyfish is a lovely book that has so much going on in terms of character, subject matter, and structure. The book is broken up into different parts, with each part prefaced with a quote from Suzy’s science teacher about the scientific method. This means the story itself is in the structure of the scientific method–there’s a hypothesis, there’s background, there’s results–which is a structural manifestation of Suzy’s obsession with facts and the comfort she seems to find in science. There’s also this odd idea that Suzy’s fixation on facts and with the world around her–something adult–makes her too childish for Franny and the other kids at school. As I read, I wondered if Suzy is on the autism spectrum in some way. Whether or not she is, students who are–as well as students who are having trouble socially adjusting to middle school–can find a lot to relate to.

I’m not sure what final project to do–I want students to discuss the book in literature circles, and I have prompts written and a reading schedule, but I’m not totally sure what it’s building to yet. (Other than an essay!) I’ll have to think about it some more.

I have some time between the end of the school year and teaching at debate camp, so I’ve been focusing on prepping the two novels I’m teaching for the first time: Wonder for my supported ELA, and The Thing About Jellyfish for my unsupported ELA. I’ve read both books before and loved them, so I’m really excited to be able to read them with students. Both books deal with similar themes, but have different approaches, so it’ll be interesting to teach them alongside each other.

I just finished going through Wonder, creating a schedule for how many pages the students will read each night, as well as discussion questions for them to answer in their reading journals. It struck me how much the theme of choosing kindness over being “right” is threaded throughout the entire book, as different characters are faced with that decision. I honestly never liked that saying much–or the other version of it, “it is better to be kind than right.” Being right is important! I’m not going to give someone false information just to be nice! What kind of message is that? But after re-reading the book and thinking deeply about each set of 6-10 pages, I realized that I had completely misunderstood what “right” means in this context. It’s not about being factually accurate–it’s about doing what’s expected, or what’s socially “correct.” The clearest example of this is early in the book, when Summer is the only person to sit with August at lunch on the first day of school. The “right” thing for her to do–the socially correct thing, the expected thing–would be for her to sit with the girls who were whispering about August, which she was going to do originally. Jack chooses the “right” thing by sitting with two boys he wanted to be friends with, on the other side of the room. But by sitting with August, Summer choses to be kind, even though it could have trashed her social capital (something that becomes clearer to her later on).

This idea of kindness is intertwined with another recurring theme: that you don’t have to be mean to hurt someone. This idea requires a much deeper level of self-awareness that I think is pretty subtle, and can be challenging for middle schoolers to process. I’m looking forward to discussing this idea in particular with my students. I’m glad we’re reading this book first trimester, because I think these ideas can really permeate through the rest of the year.

I’ll have to come up with some final project to tie things together at the end of the book. An essay, of course, but maybe some kind of anti-bullying project? I’m not sure. But it would be nice for some kind of call to action to come out of studying the book together.

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